Single particle studies of vesicular stomatitis virus assembly

TL;DRAbstract

The formation of viral particles requires the coordinated assembly of both nucleic acids and proteins. In the case of Rhabdoviruses, such as vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), the particles display a characteristic bullet-shape. VSV virions consist of the matrix protein (M), glycoprotein (G), and viral ribonucleoprotein (RNP), which contains the nucleocapsid protein (N) coated RNA bound to the large polymerase protein (L) through the phosphoprotein (P). During assembly, these components are recruited to the plasma membrane where the viral RNP undergoes condensation by M and envelopment with G containing membranes. To address whether formation of the bullet-shape requires a consistent packaging of the viral proteins, the composition of single virions was measured with fluorescence microscopy. We generated autonomously replicating VSV bearing up to 3 fluorescent protein fusions in the disordered N-terminal region of M and N-terminus of P and G. Quantification of single particles reveals t

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